Voxel 1.7 is a major update, more specifically focused on payments and monetization in general.

Similar to past updates of this scale, we’ll be having a short Beta period for testing starting from today.

Apart from testing, this period also gives people time to prepare and adapt to the new features and changes, ahead of the final release in September.

Disclaimer

Participating in a Beta is a voluntary matter. This release is not delivered as an automatic update, and it cannot be accidentally installed in your site.

That said, for those who do want to participate, you can download the beta version from your order page and manually upload it in WP-admin > Appearance > Themes > Add new

Beta version should not be used on live sites.

Addons

In WP-admin > Voxel > Settings > Addons, you can view the available addons for Voxel.
There are addons which introduce new functionality with this update, but also some existing Voxel features have been converted into addons.
This way you can choose to enable what you are going to use for any given project and disable the rest.

Ecommerce

If you enable any monetization addons (Product types, Paid Members, Paid Listings), in the main admin menu a new menu item “Ecommerce” will appear.

Under “Ecommerce” the available sub menu items are:

• Orders
  Lists all orders made on the site, from any monetization method.
• Product types
  Create and configure Product types (Available if Product types addon is enabled)
• Payments
  Choose and configure payment gateway that you will use in that site
• Settings
  General ecommerce related settings.

Payments

Under Ecommerce > Payments, you can choose and configure payment gateway that you will use in that site. In addition to Stripe, this update adds Paddle as a payment provider alternative..

Paddle

Paddle is a complete billing solution for digital products. Payments, tax, subscription management and more, all handled for you. supported in over 200 countries, and is now natively integrated into Voxel ecommerce system.

Preview of Paddle checkout

Paid members

If you enable Paid Members addon, in the main admin menu “Paid Members” menu item will appear.

When creating/editing a plan, there are some changes to the interface and options

• When creating prices for your membership plans, both test and live prices are now generated at the same time. Previously had to be created separately
• Individual plan prices now have support for Discount Price
• Free trial can now be enabled individually for any given Plan price. Previously was a global setting

Front-end changes related to Paid Members

After a customer buys a Paid Plan, the Current plan widget shows the plan details, and two buttons

• Manage subscription
• Switch plan

Since this update integrates Paid Members with the Voxel Ecommerce system, pressing Manage subscription will open that specific order.

Back to the Current Plan widget, when pressing Switch plan, the user is sent to the relevant Pricing page.

If the user chooses to switch to a more expensive plan, the price is prorated, and user is informed about the additional charge before proceeding.

In the other hand, if they choose to Switch to a Free plan, there will be an alert informing them that the existing subscription will be cancelled.

Paid listings

Monetizing listing submissions was previously done via Membership plans. With Voxel 1.7, a new addon named “Paid listings” is introduced for greater flexibility. This addon will be part of Beta 2, so we’ll provide details when that releases.

Whether you use Paid Members or Paid Listings, or combine them both depends entirely on your business plan.

Generally, Paid members is used for content or feature gating. While paid listings is used strictly to monetize submissions and their limits. Of course there’s more to that, we’ll share more details soon.

PS: We realize some people may want to convert their legacy membership plans to paid listing plans. There will be an easy way to do that with final release, so no worries.

Final word

This update is first of multiple Beta releases, before the final release in September. There’s a lot we did not cover yet, so stay tuned!

Hope you enjoy these updates, and thanks for using Voxel!

Changelog

• Paddle payments + subscriptions integration
• Paid members:
  – Added support for direct checkout during registration
  – Improved upgrade/downgrade/switch plan flow
  – Added WP-multisite support (https://getvoxel.io/questions/only-one-plan-possible-across-multisites/)
  – Subscriptions now appear under WP Admin > Ecommerce > Orders and in the frontend Orders (VX) widget
  – Paid Members addon is now optional (toggle in WP Admin > Voxel > Settings > Addons)
  – Added new “Plan renewed” app event
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/stripe-100-discount-and-plan-upgrades/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/native-icons-not-visible-on-front-end/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/critical-error-on-membership-plans/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/issues-with-date-and-time/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/page-post-type-template/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/issue-with-post-relation-and-symbol/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/google-maps-issue/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/switching-plan/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/im-having-an-issue-with-the-wall-timeline-in-mobile/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/voxel-text-editor/ (Pasing issue)
• Added https://getvoxel.io/questions/request-add-the-aria-label-attribute-to-the-action-vx-widget/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/search-form-vx-search-reset-button-alignment/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/search-and-trash-on-the-same-level-as-the-other-fields/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/display-font-awesome-duotone-icons/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/svg-icons-not-changing-colour-in-nav-and-actions-widgets/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/sticky-header-3/
• Fixed https://getvoxel.io/questions/predefined-addons-not-displaying-price-in-product-form/